One of the great pleasures of travel is stumbling upon traditions that seem to have slipped through a crack in time. Those customs that appear to have little place in the modern world, yet are fiercely cherished by those who keep them alive. Even in the ever-polished United Kingdom, we still revel in the eccentric,…
For as long as I can remember, the sea has whispered to me. Not just the endless horizon, but the pull of sail and rigging, the creak of a wooden deck, the thrill of wind as an engine. At school, while my English master valiantly battled to keep me focused – I was away with…
January and February in England are the bleak months. The euphoria of the Christmas and New Years holidays is over, the temperature is dropping and there are still at least two months to go before one can realistically expect to see the first signs of spring. It was not without some relief, therefore, combined with…
There has, for me, always been something intriguing about deserts. Whether it is the archetypal camel train plodding its way silently towards the next oasis, or the roar and dust of a hundred cars and motorcycles carving their way through the dunes on the Paris/Dakar rally, the image is one of sand stretching its way…
There is an old song that sings about “Faraway places with strange sounding names”, and many have, and will continue to be explored on this site. Sometimes, however, one doesn’t have to go far to discover a little jewel of a destination. Rye, in East Sussex, is one such. Now nearly two miles from the…
A day at the seaside often conjures up images of sandy beaches, a calm sea, and gentle waves lapping at the shore. We all love the thought of sandy beaches. Still, there is a place where the beach has forgotten that it is supposed to be just by the sea, and stretches half a mile…
When I was young, it was common to see advertisements for transatlantic travel by one of the great passenger liners of the day – Cunard’s Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth being the flag-bearers. Members of my British family with interests in the US used to make the crossing with some regularity in pre-war days, and…